


The Enchanted Forest - Introduction

by DixieDale



Series: The Enchanted Forest [1]
Category: Hogan's Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-07 21:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17373539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: The forest to the far side of Stalag 13 was ancient.  It showed up on all of the old maps, and on the very oldest of those, those located only in the 'Restricted - Research Only' sections of the university at Heidelberg, which was founded in 1386, there were two annotations to the actual name.  Those annotations?  One was 'Marchenwald' - Enchanted Forest.  The other?  'Sich Acht nehman' - Beware!.The forest had been asleep, well, dozing really, for a very long time now.  It would take something special to rouse it from that state, the spilling of blood.  And not just any blood, since there had been no shortage of blood spilt there down through the ages, and particularly in the past several years.  No, it would take the blood of one who still retained at least a spark of a memory of what magic really was, that magic had once held sway over these acres.  And it seems that moment had come.





	The Enchanted Forest - Introduction

The wooded area around Stalag 13 proved beneficial in many ways. For one thing, the forest provided the basis for many of the stories Corporal Langenscheidt told, stories HE said the forest itself had whispered to him, the ones where he spoke of the forest being 'enchanted'. Those stories often brought a smile to the face, sometimes a thoughtful frown.

(Of course, there were a few stories the forest didn't tell him, stories the forest thought too special to be spoken out loud. There were also a few stories Langenscheidt himself declined to tell, thinking the time not quite right for the telling. 

Of course, in addition to the stories, the forest provided much else for the men of Stalag 13. When there was a wood shortage, a little fast talking had caused the Kommandant to let them send a crew to pick up fallen branches, even cut down a couple of dead trees to provide much needed fuel for both the prisoners' barracks and the guards' barracks as well. The many nut trees provided a bonus, secretly gathered by men sent out by Corporal LeBeau, as were the mushrooms and other oddments that could expand their very limited diet. The woods provided some much needed cover for their more secretive activities, and one of their most used tunnels opened into a dead tree trunk in those woods.

And, for the most part, the forest kept their secrets, and Hogan had often joked that it shouldn't be 'daisies don't tell', but should be 'the forest doesn't tell'. Of course, Hogan felt HE knew all those secrets.

But even Hogan didn't know everything, not that you'd ever get him to believe that. If there was ever a man who thought he knew more about every little thing than any one else ever would or ever could know, well, he hadn't been born quite yet. Soon, perhaps, but not quite yet.

Still, the truth was the forest kept secrets even from the great Hogan. (Perhaps especially from the great Hogan.) Even for the forest, it seems there was a Need To Know List, and the forest was very careful who it allowed in on some of those more private secrets. If those who experienced the magic chose to tell, that was up to them, but the forest? Shhhh! Not a word!


End file.
